Thanks for the advice! Sorry for getting back a bit late.
Anyway, I talked to a guy in a camera store, who was super helpful. He recommended going for the Canon 700D, which is the direction I was leaning towards anyway. (Canon is supposed to be better in terms of video capability, amongst other things, and it's possible I may do live-action at some point in the future. I may also end up trying out still photography as well.) He also said that a 50mm 1.8 lens plus some extension tubes could be used in place of a macro lens, which seems like a good idea seeing as it'd be quite a bit cheaper and I wish to save as much money as possible.
SlothPaladin wrote:First questions is do you have Dragonframe (or Stop Motion Pro) Before I had Dragonframe and used a DSLR I just used a shutter release and shot blind, which doesn't really take full advantage of the live view.
I don't actually use animation software; I animate blind and put the frames directly into my editor (Sony Vegas). I don't have a camera compatible with any animation software, plus my laptop is a dinosaur that is horribly slow and still runs Windows XP, so it's not really practical. At this point I use a point-and-shoot camera with autofocus, which is absolutely horrible, so I really need some better equipment. Dragonframe definitely sounds interesting, and I certainly intend to look into it, particularly as I'll be getting a new laptop soon-ish, but for now my priority is a better camera (as basically anything would be better than my current animation setup).
For micro lens I would suggest the Micro-Nikkor-PC Auto 55mm F3.5 it runs from about $60 - $120, it is one of the sharpest lenses ever made, in adition to the lens you need a Nikon to Canon lens adaptor, this will run $30 to $70, I got a cheap $30 adaptor which works fine, but I have heard the cheaper adapters can create issues if you are shooting video (a bit of unwanted wiggle), Dragonframe recommends this adapter which looks good.
I'm curious, is there any particular reason to go for a Nikon lens as opposed to a Canon lens? As I said before, I want to save as much money as possible, and a Nikon lens plus adapters seems to get pretty pricey quite quickly. I looked up the lens adapters you linked on Amazon.co.uk, and it says they're around £160--upwards of $250--which is definitely past my budget for the time being. On the other hand, I looked up extension tubes on eBay and I've seen them for sale for around £20 from sellers who have lots of good feedback.
Either way, right now I have to earn enough money to actually buy a DSLR....
Retribution (3rd place in BRAWL 2015)&Smeagol make the most of being surrounded by single, educated women your own age on a regular basis in college
AquaMorph I dunno women are expensive